{"id":802,"date":"2014-03-19T12:30:16","date_gmt":"2014-03-19T10:30:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/?p=802"},"modified":"2014-03-19T12:30:16","modified_gmt":"2014-03-19T10:30:16","slug":"the-warrior-and-the-civilcivic-narratives-of-masculinity-and-why-harry-potters-such-an-uncommon-hero","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/2014\/03\/19\/the-warrior-and-the-civilcivic-narratives-of-masculinity-and-why-harry-potters-such-an-uncommon-hero\/","title":{"rendered":"THE WARRIOR AND THE CIVIL\/CIVIC NARRATIVES OF MASCULINITY AND WHY HARRY POTTER\u2019S SUCH AN UNCOMMON HERO <\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"

One doesn\u2019t read doctoral dissertations for pleasure, I\u2019m sorry to say, but I have very much enjoyed reading Linda Wight\u2019s Talking about Men: Conversations about Masculinities in Recent \u2018Gender-bending\u2019 Science Fiction<\/em> (2009, http:\/\/researchonline.jcu.edu.au\/11566\/1\/02whole.pdf<\/a>). She had the very good idea of taking a selection of winners and nominees to the James Tiptree Jr., a prize awarded to SF with a progressive gender issues stance, and consider to what extent these texts were actually forward-thinking. The results are mixed. <\/p>\n

At any rate, what interested me very much is that Linda Wight based her thesis on the idea that plenty of SF (and fantasy) is still focused on the \u2018warrior narrative\u2019 for masculinity, whereas in real-life the avant-garde, anti-patriarchal narrative is the one she called \u2018civil\u2019 and I have started calling \u2018civic.\u2019<\/p>\n

I emailed Linda to check whether the label \u2018civil narrative\u2019 was hers. It seems it is. She kindly explained to me that she drew extensively from Ellen Jordan and Angela Cowan\u2019s \u201cWarrior Narratives in the Kindergarten Classroom: Renegotiating the Social Contract?\u201d (Men’s Lives<\/em>, Michael S. Kimmel & Michael A. Messner, eds. 4th ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1998. 127-40). Paraphrasing her own explanation, it seems that the authors described how in kindergarten the \u2018warrior ideal\u2019 all little boys enjoy in games and fiction, is being replaced by a \u201cmasculinity of rationality and responsibility.\u201d Linda mixed this with Carol Pateman\u2019s ideas regarding fratriarchy as the actual basis of patriarchy and she came up with the \u2018civil narrative of masculinity.\u2019<\/p>\n

Last week I discussed with my class the nature of Harry Potter\u2019s heroism and why they dislike so much the final duel with Voldemort as (SPOILERS AHEAD!!) Harry does not use \u2018Avada Kedrava\u2019 to kill his arch-villain but very cleverly uses \u2018Expelliarmus\u2019 to have Voldemort, essentially, terminate himself. I argued, persuasively I hope!!, that although Harry is naturally inclined towards the \u2018civil narrative,\u2019 Voldemort\u2019s rabid emergence and Dumbledore\u2019s interested grooming (argh!) force him to take up the \u2018warrior narrative\u2019 if only until the threat is over. <\/p>\n

He, thus, becomes proficient at duelling (I had to explain how important this pathetic practice had been in the past for men), the rules of which he happens to understand much better than the quite stupid Voldemort. Once the duel to end all duels takes place, Harry, as the epilogue shows, is happy to return for good to the \u2018civil narrative\u2019 and become the kind of hero Rowling loves best: a loving, caring family man. \u2018Petty bourgeois\u2019, yes, indeed, but thank god for that in a world of Hitlers, Stalins\u2026 and Putins.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure the \u2018warrior types\u2019 our there are disappointed \u2013an Austrian student kindly explained to me that in his homeland many young men regard Harry a bit of a \u2018douchebag\u2019. Even my students (men and women) are a bit disappointed that Harry did NOT kill Voldemort. I am myself, however, quite happy that the \u2018civil narrative\u2019 dominated.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t like quoting dictionaries very much, but I do need the Oxford Dictionary to show how \u2018civil\u2019 and \u2018civic\u2019 overlap and intersect. \u2018Civil\u2019 refers to citizens, as opposed to \u2018military\u2019 or \u2018ecclesiastic\u2019 (you get the oxymoron \u2018civil war\u2019 from that, also \u2018civil law\u2019). \u2018Civil\u2019, interestingly, also means \u2018courteous and polite\u2019, which goes very well with my pet idea that gentlemanliness should be brought back. \u2018Civic\u2019 connects more closely with the \u2018city or town\u2019, both its administration and the citizens\u2019 duties and activities. \u2018Civil\u2019 and \u2018civic\u2019 refer, then, jointly, to active, non-warriorlike citizenship.<\/p>\n

Back to Harry. I\u2019ll argue that Rowling is to be praised for defending \u2018civil\u2019 over \u2018warring\u2019 masculinity. Yet, she falls short of defending \u2018civic\u2019 masculinity. Harry, poor thing, is too young to carry this immense weight on his shoulders. Yet a truly \u2018civic\u2019 man would have arrested Voldemort and demanded from the Ministry of Magic a complete upheaval of its very dubious justice system to guarantee just punishment for Voldemort. My students told me that a living Voldemort would escape Azkaban, start the Death Eaters again, etc, etc. Fair enough. <\/p>\n

I just think we need that story in which the hero (and now I understand why Rowling thought of a boy, not a girl) undermines the patriarchal warrior narrative from the inside to replace it with a masculine narrative based on civic duty, that is to say, on the defence of justice on behalf of the community. That Harry has to accept becoming a killer (even though technically he\u2019s never one) is a sad comment on his (and ours) society\u2019s inability to trust justice \u2013acknowledging here that justice in the world of wizards and witches is only marginally better than Voldemort\u2019s injustice.<\/p>\n

Thanks Linda!<\/p>\n

Comments are very welcome! (Thanks!) Just remember that I check them first for spam; it might take a few days for yours to be available. VISIT MY WEB: http:\/\/gent.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/<\/a>
\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One doesn\u2019t read doctoral dissertations for pleasure, I\u2019m sorry to say, but I have very much enjoyed reading Linda Wight\u2019s Talking about Men: Conversations about Masculinities in Recent \u2018Gender-bending\u2019 Science Fiction (2009, http:\/\/researchonline.jcu.edu.au\/11566\/1\/02whole.pdf). She had the very good idea of taking a selection of winners and nominees to the James Tiptree Jr., a prize awarded […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":98,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[212],"class_list":["post-802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-harry-potter","tag-gender-studies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/98"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}